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Friday, February 19, 2016

Pilot Project: Bob's Burgers

It’s Pilot Project time, which means for the next six weeks
I’ll be reviewing the pilots of popular comedies in an attempt to fill the void
that finishing Friends has caused.

Bob’s Burgers. My daughter is the one who suggested this,
and since I’m so far removed from all things pop-culture, I had no idea what I
was getting into, which was a good thing, because if I’d known, I probably wouldn’t
have watched it. But I did watch it, and I loved it. True, it’s crude, but in a
hilariously funny way. Now, for the pilot: Bob is having his grand re-re-reopening
of Bob’s Burgers, a family-run burger joint a block off a touristy beach. My
favorite line of the show was spoken by Bob right before the opening as he’s
facing his wife and three kids; a ragtag group at best: “Now I love you, but
you all suck at what you do and if we weren’t related, I’d fire every last one
of you.” They all stare at him for a second. His wife Linda answers with her
typical upbeat “All-right!!” and the kids all fall in line. Now, the kids: Tina
is the oldest which means they give her some responsibility in the restaurant.
Which they shouldn’t. The first thing we learn about Tina is that she has a
rash in a certain place, and we know this because she tells everyone. And she’s
their cook. Think about it. Then there’s Gene. He’s the middle child and is in
charge of advertisement, which means he’s wearing a burger costume and handing
out samples out front. Sounds simple, right? Not with this family. It takes him
a total of three seconds to tick off the mourners from the funeral home next
door and drop his tray of burgers on the ground—right in front of the health
inspector. And then there’s Louise, the youngest. She’s always on the sidelines
saying and doing things so extreme you have to pause a second and ask yourself,
did I just hear that right? And the answer is yes, yes you did. In the pilot,
Louise adds to the grand re-re-reopening fun by telling her class that her
family serves human meat in their burgers from the funeral home next door. Her parents accept this, like this is nothing
new for Louise, and because Netflix has the next two seasons all lined up and because
I just couldn’t help myself, I watched ahead and saw that that is pretty much
the case. Is it frightening that I love this show? Probably. Is it even more
frightening that I look at my own family and see alarming similarities?
Definitely.